Taiwan in Protect and Survive?

"There's speculation about it in the main thread -and some indication Australia came off rather better off than most other western nations in TL itself.

I've read one Australia start-up in the "When The Wind Blew Thread". I hope it continues..:)

oh by the way, "When The Wind Blew" is the "P&S Bar and Grill" that is where we hash out some issues, bounce off ideas...AND a place where prospective timelines can get a start and get feedback. :)

When The Wind Blew
 
I'd recommend a Post in When The Wind Blew (The P&S Open Thread) to attract interest.

Maybe a Teaser with a link to the actual Thread?

I look forward to reading P&S Fire In The East. :)

Falkenburg

Thanks - that sounds like a plan and "P&S Fire In The East" sounds like a great working title.

oh by the way, "When The Wind Blew" is the "P&S Bar and Grill" that is where we hash out some issues, bounce off ideas...AND a place where prospective timelines can get a start and get feedback. :)

Thanks, I'd come accross that thread a few days ago, but hadn't thought about using it to gather interest / feedback for "P&S Fire In The East". I think I will use that and probably post it here, too to point people following lookupshootup's thread to 'When the Wind Blew' (as well as debating it on this forum).
 
While Japan does have a pacifist constitution there is no telling how it would react to attacks on its soil especially nuclear ones even if only targeted at US bases.The death toll would still be extremely high.So the russians would be wise to take out japanese bases as well at least all bases on Hokkaido which is the closest to russian soil and Tokyo to take out the japanese government.We must add tensions between the two linked to the Kuril Islands dispute.This has never been solved even today.Russian thinking might be in a post-war world surviving japanese forces would be likely to consider this japanese soil and attack.
Whether or not its a realistic assumption is beyond the point.Plus even today exactly what measures are in place for a defence of Japan by the US are classified so russian strategy has to assume the most likely course of action regardless of official statements.So the japanese are pretty badly hit regardless Hokkaido is most likely wiped off the map at the very least alongside US bases,japanese air and navy bases,and some civilian airport and port facilities and some nuclear power plants just to be sure.Japanese army installations although in Japan the term isn't used ground-self defence being official are unlikely to be hit except for those on Hokkaido.Without an air and naval capability the army in the rest of the country is pretty much impotent to mount anything like an attack.
The south koreans should be somewhat more ok without a direct maritime border with the soviets and no disputes over land soviet strikes should be limited to US bases and Seoul which is still enough to kill millions but somewhat more ok.
The wild card is North Korea obviously nuked by the US but unlikely to be wiped out so north korean forces on the DMZ probably attacked the south once the war started.
 
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While Japan does have a pacifist constitution there is no telling how it would react to attacks on its soil especially nuclear ones even if only targeted at US bases.The death toll would still be extremely high.So the russians would be wise to take out japanese bases as well at least all bases on Hokkaido which is the closest to russian soil and Tokyo to take out the japanese government.We must add tensions between the two linked to the Kuril Islands dispute.This has never been solved even today.Russian thinking might be in a post-war world surviving japanese forces would be likely to consider this japanese soil and attack.

Even today Article 9 of the Japanese constitution specifically forbids agressive military action overseas and even close to home unless it is purely for self-defense purposes (e.g. intercepting and shooting down inbound Russian bombers once they are actually in Japanese air space). It precludes any retalitory action on the part of Japanese forces, so even if they were attacked (by Russia, China, North Korea or anyone for that matter), the country's constitution does not allow for any strike back.

So even though Japan has tried to 'help' allies in Afghanistan and elsewhere, it's been limited to purely helping out behind the front lines, offering aid and medical facilities and even then, this has been hugely controversial in Japan.

There has been a lot of noise in recent years about repealing Article 9 to allow Japan to assert itself around the world, effectively looking to punch at its (still considerable) economic weight. This again is controversial at home and overseas, the Chinese and Koreans are vehemently against this and is stifiling some of the debate. Why? Japan has a kind of national pre-occupation of what the outside world thinks of Japan (even China and Korea). Tabloid ('sport') newspapers often carry articles on this, daily 'wide shows' on TV often debate what the foreign media is saying about Japan. This was the same in the 1980s as it is now.

In the 1980s Article 9 was still entrenched and debated perhaps less than it is now. Whole generations of Japanese schoolkids were schooled in the thought that war is wrong, war is evil and that they should forever be at peace. This was kind of forced into Japanese education by the Americans and to be honest, this 'indoctrination' of Japanese schoolkids is pretty brutal, even now. Japanese educators took to educating pacifism just as earnestly as they had indoctrinated kids into believing that the Emperor was God and that Japan had a divine role in creating its empire. So elementary school kids have to read (and watch the anime) 「はだしのゲン」('Barefoot Gen') which is very harrowing and even disturbed me when I read the manga for the first time aged 18. They have to learn about the firebombing of Tokyo through 「火垂るの墓」 ('Grave of the Fireflies') and are conditioned, through being pretty much scared into not being able to sleep at night (they read / view these things at around the age of 8 / 9), into believing that war is wrong and that they should follow a pacifist lifestyle.

If you've never read / seen these, there are English language versions available. They're pretty harrowing and kind of help to show how the Japanese learn from an early age, even now, about war. I can recommend them.

So it's not really so much that the constitution is pacifist (it is), it's also the case that the general population is 'indoctrinated' (maybe there's a better word than than?) into being pacifist.

Whether or not its a realistic assumption is beyond the point.Plus even today exactly what measures are in place for a defence of Japan by the US are classified so russian strategy has to assume the most likely course of action regardless of official statements.So the japanese are pretty badly hit regardless Hokkaido is most likely wiped off the map at the very least alongside US bases,japanese air and navy bases,and some civilian airport and port facilities and some nuclear power plants just to be sure.Japanese army installations although in Japan the term isn't used ground-self defence being official are unlikely to be hit except for those on Hokkaido.Without an air and naval capability the army in the rest of the country is pretty much impotent to mount anything like an attack.

Yup, that's true - even the Japanese know very little of the US plans!

Here's the thing though, Japan would not react if US forces were targeted, even in Japan! It would be seen as an attack on US sovereign bases and would not be dealt with by Japan because of Article 9 and the treaties that are in place between Japan and the US.

There's a really good overview of this alliance published US Congress's Congress Research Service all about this kind of thing - you can read the PDF here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33740.pdf

This would have been well known to Russian strategists in 1983 and 1984 and they would know that the Japanese would not strike back. Even if they wanted to, the Japanese politicians would be too busy bickering about repealing Article 9, the general public would be more-or-less against any offensive strikes that the government would be evaporated into the air as the ICBMs slam into Kasumigaseki and other places in Tokyo and the greater Kanto region.

However, these are valid points you have raised - would Article 9 have been repealed? Would Japan have tried to make its own nukes ahead of the exchange? Would the public be pro-revenge on whoever nuked them (if the attacker could be proven) given that getting revenge on people, no matter how long it takes, is something that runs deep in Japanese society? These are difficult questions to answer but the most obvious answer would be 'no' to each of them. But that may not be the case and is something that I'll be looking at through the development of the P&S Asia Pacific thread.
 
Wouldn't hitting Japan despite its pacifist attitude actually enrage the japanese?
US bases on Japan are pretty close to populated areas so casualties would be high.For the average japanese it would make little difference that they where targeting US bases all they would know is that they got hit by nukes.It would be seen as pretty much invalidating the pacifist attitude we where peaceful and got hit anyway.IMHO russian strategy would veer towards caution.They where aware of the fact that in a full blown conflict the Soviet Union would suffer beyond anything imagineable so a bloodied Japan is far a bigger problem post-war than a wiped out Japan,by wiped out meaning eliminating any ability even theoretical of hitting soviet soil.Pacifism in the post-1945 system would be a bit hard to support with nuclear strikes on japanese soil regardless of what they hit.For the average japanese they would seem like a cruel joke.Sure some soviet missilles and aircraft would be lost before use but taking into account the closeness between the two probably 80% would hit something.
 
Sure, the Japanese would be enraged by any nuclear bombing and yup, US bases are pretty much slap-bang in urban areas (think Atsugi, Yokosuka, Yokota and Zama, which are all in the Tokyo / Kanto area and Kadena in Okinawa).

The trouble is, the government in Japan is pretty weak and fickle and unable to make decisions very quickly, even regarding national defense. The only way that Japan is likely to strike back in some way is if the government is wiped out and, separated from any form of centralized command structure, local military commanders decide to strike back themselves.

But you're quite right about Soviet strategy. It's pretty unlikely that as a single coherent nation, Japan would strike out against the Soviets (or Chinese or North Koreans) but Soviet thinking tended towards the paranoid and any country which could emerge as a perceived post-exchange threat (real or otherwise) would receive a nuke or nukes. According to the overall P&S canon here, even NZ got a couple (obviously something to do with Soviet paranoia about what they thought could be a threat from top secret NZ sheep mind control - very ASB, but that's Soviet thinking for you).

So yup, in my view, Japan would take more than a few. Certainly the US bases and also major population centres (Tokyo, Osaka etc.), but it's debatable where else (if at all) because Japanese geography lends itself to shielding many areas from nuclear blasts and the best hope an attacker could have would be to cause as much fallout as possible.

Japanese reaction would be different however. At the end of WW2, the US dropped bombs on Japan to expedite surrender as the alternative was a full-on invasion in which it was expected that the Japanese (civilians included) would fight to the last man standing. In the 1980s, this was not the case due to the existing education system and decision making hierachy - it would take the Japanese forever to develop a consensus on what to do and even if a decision was made, it would be too late. So, the only real way any revenge attack could plausibly (I believe anyway) is likely to be limited to small military groups operating on their own after centralized command has disappeared - think 'rogue' generals operating in what they believe to be national best-interest / national preservation and with the full support of their men.

That is, if Article 9 was not repealed in the build up to full blown hostilites.:D
 
Repealing article 9 in the run-up to war would be weird and actually provocative.Whatever security plans exist in Japan short of an actual enemy attack japanese policy would probably veer towards neutrality up to the last possible moment.Repealing the article would seem like they are preparing for war at least in soviet eyes and increase risk.At most i would expect a reinterpretation of the article to allow defensive measures on a preemptive basis something like if they had accurate knowledge of an attack being planned on Japan they would take measures to prevent it.Even this would be hard but a full repeal would not work.
 
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